March 09 2007

Problems With Roundup?

Pacific Grove resident Ximena Waissbluth was walking her dog in Pacific Grove’s Washington Park when she saw a man spraying a clear liquid under the picnic tables. “I first thought that he was just watering the forest floor, because there was so much,” she told the PG City Council on Feb. 21. “Then I smelled it, asked him, and he said it was Roundup. Why? To kill the weeds.”

The revelation rattled Waissbluth, chair of the local Surfrider chapter. She worried about the herbicide’s effects on the park ecosystem, on the butterflies who famously rest there, and on the tourists who flock to see them. A little research convinced Waissbluth that the product’s main ingredient, glyphosate, is toxic to people, animals and the environment.

There’s plenty of evidence that she’s right. Then again, there’s evidence supporting the opposite view. More